Manfred Honeck

conductor

Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world's leading conductors, whose unmistakable and trend-setting interpretations are receiving great international acclaim. For more than a decade, he has been Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where his contract will run until 2022. He and the orchestra are celebrated both in Pittsburgh and abroad. Guest appearances regularly include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as major European music cities and major festivals such as the BBC Proms, the Berlin Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Grafenegg Festival. The close relationship with the Musikverein in Vienna will be continued in autumn 2019 as part of the next major tour of European cities

His successful work in Pittsburgh is extensively documented by numerous recordings for the label Reference Recordings. All SACDs featuring works by Strauss, Beethoven, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and others have received a number of outstanding reviews and awards, including a number of Grammy nominations. The recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 and Barber's Adagio won the GRAMMY for "Best Orchestral Performance" in 2018. Most recently, Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 was published in August 2019.

Born in Austria, he completed his musical education at the University of Music in Vienna. His many years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra have had a lasting influence on his work as a conductor. His art of interpretation is based on his determination to venture deep beneath the surface of the music. Manfred Honeck began his career as assistant to Claudio Abbado in Vienna and as director of the Jeunesses Musicales Orchestra Vienna. He then became the first Kapellmeister to the Zurich Opera House, where he was awarded the European Conducting Prize in 1993. He has since served as one of the three principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, as Musical Director of the Norwegian National Opera, as First Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic, and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm.

From 2007 to 2011 Manfred Honeck was Music Director of the Stuttgart State Opera. There he conducted, among others, premieres of Berlioz ' Les Troyens , Mozart's Idomeneo, Verdi's Aida, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, Rosenkavalier by R. Strauss, the bat by Johann Strauss, and Wagner's Lohengrin and Parsifal. Performances in opera led him to the Semperoper Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival. In the Beethoven anniversary year 2020 he will take over the musical direction of the new staging of Fidelio in the version of 1806 at the Theater an der Wien. On the other side of the conductor's podium, Manfred Honeck has designed a series of symphonic suites based on scenic works, including Janáček's Jenůfa , Strauss' Elektra and Dvořák's Rusalka. These arrangements, all of which he recorded with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, are also performed regularly with orchestras around the world.

As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck has been at the podium of all leading international orchestras, including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchester de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic; in the United States, he has directed the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He has also been Artistic Director of the International Wolfegger Concerts for twenty-five years. Manfred Honeck has been honored by several universities in the United States as an honorary doctorate. On behalf of the Austrian Federal President, he was honored in 2016 with the professional title Professor. The jury of the International Classical Music Awards awarded him "Artist of the Year" in 2018.

Season 2019/2020 (August 2019)

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Emanuel Ax

piano

Born in modern day Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at the Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. Additionally, he attended Columbia University where he majored in French. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists followed four years later by the coveted Avery Fisher Prize.

Highlights of the 2019/20 season include a European summer festivals tour with the Vienna Philharmonic and long-time collaborative partner Bernard Haitink, an Asian tour with the London Symphony and Sir Simon Rattle, US concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Lahav Shani in addition to three concerts with regular partners Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall in March 2020. Further participation in Carnegie Hall’s celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday will culminate in a solo recital in May preceded by recitals in Madison, Santa Barbara, Orange County, Washington, Las Vegas and Colorado Springs. With orchestra he can be heard in Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. In Europe he can be heard with orchestras in London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Rome, Zurich, Rotterdam and Tel Aviv.

Always a committed exponent of contemporary composers, with works written for him by John Adams, Christopher Rouse, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bright Sheng, and Melinda Wagner already in his repertoire, most recently he has added HK Gruber's Piano Concerto and Samuel Adams’ "Impromptus".

A Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987, recent releases include Mendelssohn Trios with Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, Strauss' Enoch Arden narrated by Patrick Stewart, and discs of two-piano music by Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Yefim Bronfman. In 2015 Deutche Grammophon released a duo recording with Mr. Perlman of Sonatas by Faure and Strauss, which the two artists presented on tour during the 2015/2016 season. Mr. Ax has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. His other recordings include the concertos of Liszt and Schoenberg, three solo Brahms albums, an album of tangos by Astor Piazzolla, and the premiere recording of John Adams's Century Rolls with the Cleveland Orchestra for Nonesuch. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax also contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax's recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th century music/Piano).

A frequent and committed partner for chamber music, he has worked regularly with such artists as Young Uck Kim, Cho-Liang Lin, Mr. Ma, Edgar Meyer, Peter Serkin, Jaime Laredo, and the late Isaac Stern.

Mr. Ax resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. They have two children together, Joseph and Sarah. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, Yale University, and Columbia University. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit www.EmanuelAx.com.